Short Fiction in...Magazines!?

There’s been a rather odd hole in my reading for a while. See, I love short fiction. Out of my five favorite authors, two exclusively write short fiction (Lovecraft and Ligotti) and one I like best for his interconnected short fiction (VanderMeer). In my recent Best Of posts, four of the books I nominated were collections. Recently, I’ve even begun to submit my short fiction to the various genre magazines that duotrope has so helpfully listed for us desperate writers.

And, through all of this, do you know how many magazines (where short fiction actually, you know, comes from) I have read? The answer’s roughly zero. A while ago, I bought a copy of Fantasy & Science Fiction to peruse but never got around to it.

I considered making this a Breaking New Ground post, but this is such an oversight that it seems almost silly to do so, especially as I won’t exactly be heading off to new genres. Just sensibly exploring the genres I already love. Also considered making this a new year’s resolution, but I’m not quite that dramatic – just dramatic enough to write over two hundred words on the subject in its own post.

What publications am I looking at? Well, first there’s Shock Totem, which is actually the magazine that got this whole thing started. After that, I suppose I’ll go buy a few single issues, read them (and perhaps read that F&SF I have around here somewhere), and see about subscriptions from there.

So, after far too long on the subject, the rather simple meat of the post: short fiction in magazine form shall come to the Rack.

I know, I’m excited too.